Editor’s Piece

Please note that if you have not renewed your membership your period of grace has expired and this will be your last newsletter.

There are always new challenges and new opportunities and your membership is important in our advocacy role, even if you find it difficult to come to our activities.

A sad piece of news is that we have probably lost all the work that the three RMIT students did on researching the heritage of the Stawell Field Naturalists. The computer and backups were stolen from Sophie’s car, along with her cameras and other valuables. The computer was found but badly damaged. We still are holding out faint hopes that experts may be able to retrieve something, but nothing so far. All that work, not just the student work, but that of the field naturalists and others who gave up their time to talk to them.

And a bit of good news. Congratulations to our member Ben Gunn who can now add the letters Ph.D after his name. The title of his thesis is “Art of the Ancestors” We look forward to hearing more about it from him soon. We have learnt so much from Ben about the Grampians art sites, but much of his work has also been in the north of the country.

This newsletter is becoming so full that I am going to have to omit some interesting pieces I had intended to include. I made a submission to the Inquiry into the control of invasive animals on Crown land and have received the Summary Booklet. It will come up for discussion at the end of the year so I’ll report further then.

Three of us attended a training session by Parks on their new Volunteer site “Park Connect” and it looks as if it could be useful to us. More next time but take a look at it. But it won’t replace having a real live person on the ground. Check it out www.parkconnect.vic.gov.au

Our most recent activity was our AGM and Wendy’s AGM report will come later. The good news is we have some new faces on our committee which is really good. The sad bit is farewelling two hard working members, our treasurer Mabel and our secretary Wendy are both heading for a rest. Hard acts to follow.

I have been doing this role for quite a few years now, and have accepted to continue. I do enjoy it, but would love someone to volunteer to assist and maybe take over slowly. You don’t have to live anywhere close by. I recently discovered that the media person for Wimmera CMA lives in southern NSW. If she can do it, so can one of you city members!